NEWS AND VIEWS: The prodigal medal returns (04/18/04)

NEWS AND VIEWS

The prodigal medal returns

by Lubomyr Luciuk

We began to remember a forgotten man first in the nation's capital, in the summer of 1996. Next we did so in Toronto, then in Richmond, B.C. Finally, on August 21, 2000, we returned to Ukraine, from whence he came. Trilingual bronze plaques honouring Filip Konowal now stand in each of these four places. A fifth has yet to be erected near Lens, France, where his wartime valor won him the highest military honor the British Empire ever bestowed - the Victoria Cross.

In 1913 Konowal left his village, and a wife and daughter behind, trying to build a better life for them all in a New World. The Great War cut him off from them, forever. Volunteering for service with Ottawa's 77th Infantry Battalion, he was soon transferred to British Columbia's 47th, for so fierce was the fighting on the Western Front that replacements were urgently needed to replenish decimated regiments. Konowal would go on to fight on the Somme and later at Vimy Ridge.

He was unlike most Ukrainian immigrants, for he came from tsarist Russia. He had even served as a bayonet instructor in imperial ranks. Lucky for him, for here he was officially categorized as a "Russian," and so did not suffer the sorry fate of those from Ukrainian lands under Austro-Hungarian rule. Called "Austrians," thousands of the latter were branded "enemy aliens," victims of Canada's first national internment operations of 1914-1920. Carted off to concentration camps, women and children among them, these unfortunates were forced to labor under trying conditions in the country's frontier hinterlands, stripped of what little wealth they had, eventually even disenfranchised. Konowal escaped all that, by being a soldier.

In late August 1917, during the Battle of Hill 70, Cpl. Konowal's remarkable bravery earned him a VC, presented by His Majesty King George V himself, who remarked: "Your exploit is one of the most daring and heroic in the history of my army. For this, accept my thanks." Konowal would soldier on, for a total of three years and 357 days with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, not only in Western Europe but also in Siberia, against the Bolsheviks. Perhaps he was just trying to get home. He never did.

So he came back to Canada in July 1919. For years his life was troubled, a consequence of severe war wounds. His first wife, Anna, would perish during the genocidal Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine. Until his death, in 1959, the best job he ever had was as a janitor in the House of Commons. He used to joke that he served first with a rifle and would now do so with a mop.

While honored by Ukrainian Canadian veterans, Konowal was otherwise forgotten. Buried in Ottawa's Notre Dame Cemetery, his grave was originally marked with only the simplest of tablets. Even the whereabouts of his medal - one of only 94 Canadian VCs - was uncertain. Officials at the Canadian War Museum insisted Konowal's medal was simply "misplaced" in their collections. We suspected it was stolen.

And then, two Fridays ago based on a tip from a British collector, Iain Stewart, I learned that Konowal's VC was up for auction in Hamilton, at the end of May. Vigorous interventions by Canadian War Museum staff, by parliamentarians like Inky Mark, and by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, ensured that by the following Monday the RCMP had secured the medal. Assuming it is an authentic VC, and Konowal's, the War Museum will soon reclaim it. As its senior vice-president, Joe Geurts, told me, last week: "Call the police ... that medal belongs to us." Actually it belongs to all Canadians.

Konowal was the honorary patron of Branch 360 of the Royal Canadian Legion. Its veterans have sought to remind us of the price he paid to become a citizen, of the pride he took in having been a soldier. In a time when our national unity is far from secure and when there are cynics loose in the land who question whether a military calling is an honorable one, we must not forget what Konowal - an immigrant, a soldier, a janitor - did for his king and his country, with no expectation of reward, for precious little recognition.

Now that his prodigal Victoria Cross has been recovered it must be permanently displayed in the new Canadian War Museum, for Filip Konowal was a true Canadian hero. We should all be reminded of just how much we still need men like him.

Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk teaches political geography at the Royal Military College of Canada and is a member of Toronto's Branch 360 of the Royal Canadian Legion. With Ron Sorobey he co-authored the booklet, "Konowal: A Canadian Hero" (Kingston: Kashtan Press, 2000).

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